[QUOTE]Originally posted by AKAtude:
Were they perpetuating a stereotype of those citizens or were they being honest about a practice that really does go on every day somewhere? The only difference is that they were able to make us laugh about it, but they also made us think.
Years ago Saturday Night Live put on a skit where a black character (played by Eddie Murphy) was "made" into a white man for a day. Yall remember all of the white characters Eddie played in Coming to America? Well, he looked so white that had I not saw the make-up being applied I would have actually thought it was a white man. Anyway, they had "white" Eddie go into a posh jewelry store and the shop owners welcomed him with open arms and left him alone with all of the expensive jewels (even insisted he try them on)...meanwhile, they watched the black guy like a hawk watching a chicken. Then Eddie got on a bus, which seemed rather normal at first but as soon as the last black person got off the bus a white lady got up and started serving drinks and snacks and elevator music started playing. It was just like the Oprah show that Vanda mentioned but of course it was fiction...or was it? I agree that the networks (it was NBC come to think of it) do try to show honest depictions of things that actually go on in our society. They, of course, do it in the name of comedy so as not to offend viewers or risk losing ratings. It does,however, make us say Hmmm.
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